


Chilled

by Jaedr



Category: Death Note
Genre: Angst, M/M, T for Language and Violent thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6186268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaedr/pseuds/Jaedr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello has been gone from Wammy's house for a year. Near and Matt interact for the first time in forever and have been dealing with the stress of missing him differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chilled

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Jonas because I realized someone else liked Neapolitan as much as I do. God I love that ship. I love these stupid, reckless boys so much. Matt and Near are so precious to me but I want them to cry.

His footsteps are muffled—by his socks, by the stillness of the night, by the blanket of snow enveloping the House. In the dead of night he is more of a ghost than a boy about to become a man and he shuffles down the halls more like a corpse than a creature of flesh and blood. He aches all the way down in his joints, his hands frozen stiff with the weather. The halls have felt colder than they should during winter for a year now and he tells himself it’s not because the warmth of a specific body is missing.

He reaches the playroom and feels aimless. He’s not one for pacing and he hasn’t brought anything to stack or play with, so he takes up residence next to the large bay window that overlooks the yard. It’s cold where it brushes his skin, frost creeping around the edges of the glass, but he’s used to the cold. The moon bathes everything in the kind of light that could be eerie, but Near prefers the cool tones of nighttime to the too-bright rays that fill the room at sunset. Someone prone to romantic thoughts would say that he was suited for the white stillness of a winter’s night. Near, however, is not such a person. So instead, he just sits and shivers and desperately tries not to think about why his heart aches as much as his hands.

There’s a loud click that echoes through the silent room as the large door to the playroom snicks open. Near’s breath catches in his chest and threatens to become a rattle. He hears the muffled sound of bare feet treading over chilled wood approach. He just barely startles before he forces himself to still when a firm hand comes down on his left shoulder. It bites into his shoulder bone all the wrong ways and grinds the bone against muscle but he doesn’t make a sound to announce it.

“Matt,” Near breathes without looking up.

“Knew it was you, even without my goggles,” Matt responds. He sounds kind of smug, as if he needed to be a Wammy’s genius to figure out who would be dressed in all white in the play room in the middle of the night.

“Why are you up?” Near wonders. He gets a laugh in response and bristles with indignation. Sometimes he doesn’t understand normal social interactions, but he was sure he had just asked a genuinely concerned question and Matt was brushing him off.

“Near, why are _you_ up?” Matt questions back.

Near looks up into his uncovered and squinty eyes, a small smile still on Matt’s face. He thinks he might be being mocked but he answers anyways.

“I couldn’t sleep. I dreamed about Mello,” he says flatly both honest and viciously hoping to hear the choke in Matt’s breathing when he finishes without emotion, “He was being killed by Kira because he was foolish enough to get caught.”

Matt’s reaction is exactly what he expected it would be. The hand on his shoulder tightens beyond painful. He can feel Matt’s overlong fingernails digging into his skin where he grips. The squint turns deadly instead of just blind. Matt’s lips turn up into a snarl.

“You piece of fucking shit,” is viciously bitten out at him. Near’s chest tightens when he thinks Matt might raise his other hand and hit him right in his face. Instead Matt just stands there ferociously gripping his shoulder and panting heavily.

Near might honestly have a hidden death wish because he just replies with, “So I’ve been told,” in a voice that if it belonged to some other person might be considered wry and self-deprecating but coming from him only sounded condescending.

Oddly, Matt’s laugh is back. Only this time it sounds harsher, less kind. He let’s go of Near’s shoulder and runs the hand through his already messy bedhead. He looks past Near out the window and says, “God, Mello was fucking right about you. You’re just an emotionless prick who doesn’t give a damn about anyone else, aren’t you?”

It hurts more, somehow, coming from Matt. It’s not an accusation that’s been few and far between living in an orphanage filled with genius children who all carry trauma with them like badges of honor. But he’s always admired Matt; he’s smart, and funny, and makes friends easily. Matt is everything Near is not, but he’s never thought of them as contrary to one another. Without the need to tag behind Mello on his daily rounds of antagonizing Near, Matt and Near haven’t interacted much in the last year.

When Mello had first left there had been the thought that maybe Matt would finally climb past Near in the rankings, no longer hindered with the idea of infuriating his best friend by doing the one thing he was unable to. Near had always suspected that if he only had the drive, Matt could easily outpace them all, but his suspicions were never confirmed. Instead, Matt had turned inward on himself and even fallen in the rankings. Maybe Mello was the reason he had even been so high up in the first place, making sure his best friend didn’t embarrass him by being too low on the scoreboard.

There had been an even more private thought, though, hidden deep in Near’s compartmentalized brain. That maybe Matt would be as lonely without Mello as Near himself was. That maybe they could take the opportunity of the vacuum created by Mello’s absence to become closer, if not friends. That maybe their loneliness was complementary.

Near was a fool, he realizes, as he dissociates himself from their current interaction. He wasn’t suited to be the kind of companion Matt might need. Matt is sunshine, warmth and solid loyalty. Near is like frost and, at best, cool and distant. There’s a faint feeling that might be regret but it's a little more bittersweet, as if he’s mourning all the interactions that could have been if only he was normal.

“I,” Near starts, throat thick with unfamiliar emotions, “I’m not a sociopath, Matt. I’m not emotionless. If anything, Mello is the heartless one. He left. He was too stupid to-“

Near’s sentence is cut off by that vice grip on his shoulder again and this time Matt is shaking him violently as if rattling Near enough will erase his words like an etch-a-sketch. Near goes limp to make himself a more pathetic target in the hopes that Matt’s moral compass won’t let him hurt someone who won’t fight back.

“Shut the fuck up about him!” Matt grits out between clenched teeth. He’s going red around the ears and high up on his cheeks with barely restrained anger. Near’s never noticed before, but Matt has very faint freckles unevenly distributed on his cheeks and forehead. There’s a particularly dark one above his left eyebrow right above where it’s drawn together with his right. He thinks he’s never been this close to Matt before and he’s also never been able to clearly see his eyes because his goggles were always in the way. There’s moisture gathering on the surface of them.

“You don’t get to talk about him like that,” Matt says. His hand is rhythmically clenching and unclenching on Near’s shoulder, like he's unsure if he wants to push the other boy away or out the window or if he wants to make sure he can’t run away, just in case he _does_ decide to hit him.

“I’m sorry,” Near says, even though he’s not sure if he really is. He does hate Mello for leaving and he does think leaving without ensuring his own safety was stupid; but he might be sorry that he’d upset Matt. He hates that he might be responsible for the tears that remain unshed along his waterline. Whether they’re from missing Mello or the rage he felt at Near, he’s still sorry they’re there. And he’s sorry for the thought that ran through his head when he noticed them, about how pretty they made Matt’s eyes, how much brighter the green seemed with the silver moonlight bouncing off the wetness.

Near brings one of his aching hands up to touch Matt’s where it rests on his shoulder, the other one gripping the hem his own button down. The action startles Matt enough that all traces of anger momentarily disappear from his face and a droplet threatens to fall from the corner of his eye. It does and they both go very still, as if now the emotion was real and had to be acknowledged.

“I miss him,” Matt whispers, wide-eyed and terrified.

Near’s chest constricts again. His heart has never been the strongest and it’s making sure he remembers. His own eyes are wider than usual as he makes eye contact with Matt and whispers back, “Me too.”

Matt slumps as if the pride that had been helping him carry on in the year that Mello has been gone has fled from him. He rests his body weight against Near as he places his forehead on the opposite shoulder from his hand. Matt’s left hand finally comes up, but it doesn’t harm Near, only grips his shirt tightly at the waist. The fabric bunches up between his fingers and goes uncomfortably tight on Near’s left side, the seam pressing into the delicate skin there. If he hadn’t been sitting, he would have fallen over. He can feel Matt’s tears soaking through his shirt.

Near is a terrible person to think it, but he’s never been warmer.


End file.
